Business owners and managers are confronted with the serious problem of shopping cart thefts as well as the removal of shopping carts from the business premises. Shopping carts are normally made available for customers for use within a business structure as well as at least a portion of an adjoining parking lot. Problems arise when the shopping carts are taken off the business premises, for reasons of theft or for some otherwise innocent purpose. Carts are often stolen for the resale value or personal use, whereas other times a cart may be removed from the premises due to a customer's legitimate desire to transport goods to a nearby residence or distantly parked automobile. All to often, however, regardless of the purpose for removal, once a cart is removed from the premises, it is never returned.
Businesses are justifiably concerned with the removal of shopping carts from their business premises since an average shopping cart will cost the business operator approximately $110.00. Due to the relative expense of the shopping carts, as well as the frequency of shopping cart thefts and removal from the premises, a demand has been created for businesses which specialize in shopping cart recovery. Once such company is known as Oliver's Cart Recovery Service located in the Southern California region of the United States. Oliver's Cart Recovery Service operates fifty (50) recovery trucks in and around Southern California, as well as the Las Vegas area. The company claims that each day it recovers approximately 11,000 carts. Due to the staggering number of cart thefts and removal, there is a great need by business owners for preventing shopping carts and the like from ever leaving the business premises.
Previous methods have been devised in an attempt to retain shopping carts on the premises. Such methods include the providing of physical barriers along the perimeter of a prescribed area, however, such barriers are impractical since it is desirable to allow a customer access to an automobile for the loading of goods.
Other vehicle theft prevention systems include those which provide a device for producing alarm signals on board each vehicle wherein such device is activated by a short range radio transmitter located on the premises in the event of removal of the cart from the premises. It is also known to provide means for immobilizing the cart in response to a radio transmission as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,242,668 issued to Herzog. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,880 issued to Bianco, discloses a solenoid-operated brake device for a shopping cart wheel which is activated in response to an array of permanent magnets imbedded in an entrance area of an enclosed parking lot area.
Previously and presently known vehicle theft prevention systems are normally ineffective as illustrated by the numerous thefts that occur each day, and such systems thereby fail to prevent the theft or removal of arts from a prescribed area. Such known systems are difficult to monitor in that they do not provide a means for detecting an impending theft attempt. Also., known systems are difficult to maintain, requiring special equipment to restore a cart to an operational condition once a theft attempt has been made. Additionally, most systems are cost prohibitive to produce since such systems include expensive hardware which must be incorporated on board each cart, as well as the necessary equipment that is installed upon the premises to operate the system.
Thus there exists a substantial need in the art for an effective vehicle theft prevention system that provides easy monitoring and that is inexpensive to both produce and maintain.